GhostbustersGhostbusters(1984, Color Columbia Pictures)
Video ISBN 0-8001-0790-X
105 Minutes Running Time
Headlining Cast
(Full Credits are below)
When ghosts go on the rampage, only three men can save the world. It's GHOSTBUSTERS, starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis as a maniacal band of parapsychologists specializing in psychic phenomena - and supernatural hilarity! Fired from university research jobs, Drs. Venkman (Murray), Stantz (Aykroyd), and Spengler (Ramis) set up shop as "Ghostbusters," ridding Manhattan of bizarre apparitions. But even the spirit exterminators are severely tested when beautiful Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) and her nerdy neighbor (Rick Moranis) become possessed by demons living in their building. Soon every spook in the city is loose and our heroes face their supreme challenge at a roof-top demonic shrine. If you want your spirits raised, who you gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS! -- Video Sleeve Synopsis
Ghostbusters was the highest grossing comedy film of all time (before Men in Black overthrew the throne) and it was rightly so. The film made the catch phrase "Who Ya Gonna Call?" as popular as "May the Force Be With You" and was instantly a symbol of pop culture.
- Many people don't know that the movie Ghostbusters was actually written for Dan Aykroyd and his comedic partner John Belushi. However, Belushi's untimely death caused Dan to have to rewrite the script to include other partners. The rest is history.
- The phrase "Who Ya Gonna Call?" was actually contreived in one of Dan Aykroyd's earlier pictures, The Blues Brothers. In it's complete form the phrase was "Who Ya Gonna Call, Jake?"
- The Ecto-1 was originally scripted to have psychokenetic powers, including a "cloaking device" and a "smart security alarm." The only paranormal power exhibited by the car in the film was a scene where a police officer puts a ticket on the windsheild and the ticket burns up! The scene, which was shot and cut into the film, was a last-minute deletion during the final editing process.
- Ray Parker Jr.'s theme song to Ghostbusters was written so long after the film had completed production, that several scenes in which the Ghostbusters sing the theme song were cut - parts of the original idea for the theme song can be heard in the original trailer (available on Criteron's laserdisc collection)
- Watch the movie for various references to Stay Puft Marshmellows well in advance of the big guy's appearance in the film. In fact, behind the Ghostbusters firehouse a matte painting pf the New York Skyline included a Stay Puft Marshmellows billboard.
